The last few days - Time to say goodbye

Name: Christoph
Campus: LUCT

One of my last tasks included to write an article for Unisys, one of Maisberger’s clients in the IT sector. The article was aimed to explain how biometrics technology works and how it is used practically, showing the benefits and advantages of the technology. My supervisor gave me a free hand in how to write the article, which was weal and woe at the same time. On one side, I could structure the article according to what I think is the best, on the other side, I didn’t have much orientation and was first a bit unsure how to structure the article.  

But after conducting some proper research, one of the most important tasks in preparation of writing an article, I started my first draft and it wasn’t hard for me to write the article once I started. My supervisor gave me some suggestions and ideas how to improve the article and what to add. Hereby it was especially important that the article, though of course our client Unisys should be mentioned here and there, does not look like an advertisement for or on behalf of Unisys but contains verifiable and objective facts from a different number of sources.

After adding and changing the things mentioned by my supervisor, the article was sent to the Unisys PR department who approved the article and finally in March this year, ‘my’ article got published on searchsecurity.de. It’s really cool to have one’s own article published and yes, I was kinda proud of it ;-).

Here's a link to the article. It's in German language, but if you are interested just use Google Translator or any other translation services.

http://www.searchsecurity.de/themenbereiche/identity-und-access-management/biometrie/articles/353497/  

The last few days brought mixed emotions for me. On one side, I felt happy and relieved that I completed my internship and have overcome all the challenges.  On the other side I also felt kind of sad to leave the place as I enjoyed my work and met many nice colleagues which I will miss. 

This feeling of mixed emotions was also present on my last day of work. I did work as usual till the early afternoon, then I used the rest of the time to ‘clean up’ my desk and gather all of my belongings. Then it was time to say goodbye to my colleagues. They surprised me with a farewell gift, a card signed by the whole team and a huge box full with sweets and chocolates. I was so happy about this as it showed that my colleagues appreciated my contributions to their work and apart from that we also became sort of friends..

So this was my last blog post, thanks for reading and goodbye!

PR ROLES

As weeks were passing by the work load was pilling up and at times I had to work on weekends in order to keep on the right track so it was not always easy.

During my stay at Malaysian Care in most days I did media monitoring and media clips. I had to collect information concerning Malaysian Care and other charity organisations from the English newspapers. I also have to pack the library and update the system by adding new books and removing the old ones. The other assignment was to attend to the volunteers; I had to welcome them and brief them about the organisation, help them to fill up the voluntary forms.

The organisation always have short meetings on Friday and it was my duty to make a powerpoint of every meeting on Thursdays. I was supposed to contact every department and ask them if they have anything to put on the slide so that I would not leave out anyone. If the information given to me was too long or having some mistakes I had to edit it without distorting the information.

During Chinese new year I was part of the PR team that organized a dinner for the orphans at a Chinese restaurant.  The preparations included, booking the place, inviting staff members, printing t.shirts for the orphans and organizing transport for them. It sounded as an easy task but it was challenging in cases of how many tables can we book, which is the best day to have the dinner and the color of t.shirts to choose. After dinner I took led them to the swimming for a photo shoot session and we also gave them small gifts and oranges as it is supposed to be done according to the tradition of Chinese new year.

Towards the end of month I was offered to write an article for the organisation's magazine. The article was about the partnership of Malaysian Care and a women's organisation. I had to attend the meeting with these two partners so that I can gather information for the article. I interviewed the leaders involved and they allowed me to go through their files where I managed to quote some important notes. I was given three days to complete the article and submit it because on the fourth day all articles should be binded all together and given to the editor so i worked hard and managed to be the deadline. Making a magazine is not a one day task it requires, research, editing, proof reading, packaging and distribution and I experienced all these steps. Before it can be put in order we had to do a photo shoot, thus means approaching some people and asking them to pose for the magazine, turning the hall into a photo studio and telling people how to pose.

                                         PICTURE OF CHINESE NEW YEAR DINNER


                                        COVER PAGE OF MALAYSIAN CARE MAGAZINE

The growth of Social Media - No end in sight!

Name: Christoph

Campus: LUCT

Every Friday morning, all the Maisberger  trainees meet for the so-called ‘Trainee Breakfast’ , a 1 hour meeting where all the Trainees have breakfast together and discuss about one specific topic, presented by a senior member of the Maisberger team. During my time as intern at Maisberger, I was invited to join the Trainee breakfast which was a great opportunity to broaden my horizon and get some more exposure of the real PR world. The topics covered while I was there ranged from ‘how to write the perfect media release’ or ‘how do I conduct interviews’ to ‘the importance of Social Media’. Since I find this topic very interesting and exciting and some of you already discussed the use of Social Media in your blog posts, I would like to share with you some facts & figures I learned from the 'Trainee Breakfast' which show the enormous potential of Social Networks for PR practitioners.

First of all, what actually is the definition of Social Media? Everyone talks about it, but how to describe it? Social Media platforms are characterized by two basic features:

- They are being used digitally

- Everyone can use them as receiver as well as sender of 'messages'

The second feature makes Social Media so distinctive from 'traditional' media, where there is a clear split between the role of receiver and sender.

So let’s talk about some interesting statistics of Social Media that show its importance and influence:

In Germany, 46.1 million people are online, spending 24 hours a month online on average.

76 % of those are registered on one or more Social Media platforms and among the age group 14 – 49, a staggering 96 % are members of at least one Social Network. 

This shows that through Social Networks, one can reach out to a vast amount of people that otherwise could not be targeted.

The world’s biggest Social Network as we all know is Facebook. Launched in 2004, it has more than 500 million active members worldwide, among them 19 million German users. 

50 % of Facebook users are younger than 35 years.

50 % of users follow 2 – 5 brands / organizations (like-button)

All these numbers just show what an important and influential role Facebook and other Social Media platforms will play in the upcoming years. I think it was never easier for PR practitioners to reach out to the (young) target group and get their messages across. 

However, this being said, an organization’s Social Media appearance is of course not automatically running successfully by itself. Many organizations start Social Media activities without having a clear strategy and concept. In my opinion, it is not sufficient to just open a Facebook account and put some posts about the organization / client, but PR practitioners must develop an individual strategy tailored to meet the organization’s goals and to reach out to a specific target group.

What do you guys think about the use of Social Media within Public Relations? Can you share any examples how you used Social Networks during your internship?

The importance (and fun) of internal Public Relations

Name: Christoph
Campus: LUCT

Internal Public Relations, the way an organization communicates with its employees, is one of the most important yet often neglected aspects of Public Relations, as we already learned through the previous PR modules in university. 

So how does a PR agency itself handle internal public relations? For my placement at Maisberger PR agency I can say that the company is very well aware of the importance of employee communications and engages in a lot of activities to keep their employees satisfied and ‘happy’.

The first day I joined Maisberger started with a ‘lunch meeting’. This lunch meeting is a weekly activity at Maisberger, where all employees come together and discuss about a current issue, for example about a new client acquisition, about a current PR project the company is doing or just about any topic that is important for PR work in general or the company's work in particular. Because the employees ‘sacrifice’ their lunch time and stay in the office for the lunch meeting, the company provides lunch for everyone. 

Each week, one or more employees of the Maisberger team will prepare the lunch meeting and present ‘their topic’. In the eight weeks I was there, topics ranged from the creation & development process of a new client's website or the strategy behind a social media campaign to the topic of how to pitch to clients in a self-confident way and the presentation of a research study about the upcoming PR trends. 

But more than learning about a lot of interesting things that are useful for your PR work, the weekly lunch meeting was also a great opportunity to get to know my colleagues. As I also mentioned in my previous post, a good working climate and good understanding between colleagues is very important as it helps you to be confident and happy with your own work. Being included in the team from day one made me much more confident in my work and encouraged me to rather ask questions when I faced some difficulties instead of losing confidence and just giving up.

A highlight each year for the whole team is the Maisberger Christmas staff party. I was very lucky to do my internship during this time and was invited to join the staff for the Christmas party, which I felt was really nice from the company since I just joined them as intern. Every year, someone from the Maisberger management team is organizing a surprise Christmas trip for the whole staff. Only the management team knows what place we go to, the rest of the team just gets informed about what things to bring with them and what kind of clothes to wear. This created a very exciting atmosphere in the weeks before the trip, where everyone was speculating about where the trip this year would go.

And this year’s trip was an overnight excursion into the Bavarian mountains near the Austrian border. We had to climb up a hill for about 45 mins in the light of the torches to reach a small idyllic hotel with a beautiful panoramic view of the Alps. Here we had a delicious 3-course dinner, a great entertainment program with traditional Bavarian music and much more. This was a great opportunity to get to know more about my colleagues and it was a lot of fun to spend some time together in a very relaxed atmosphere. 

Below you can find some pictures from the Christmas celebration. It is also tradition that all new employees, trainees as well as the intern ;-) , have to do some entertaining performance for the team. This year, the ‘new ones’ had to dress as Santa Claus (all women) respectively angels (all guys) and sing some popular Christmas songs in a special version for Maisberger. After being a bit worried about my performance, it was actually a lot of fun, as you hopefully can see from the pictures.

So from my point of view, my internship company Maisberger is truly committed to satisfy their employee's needs and can be a leading example for great employee communications. 

What about your placement, did you also feel welcome from the first day or was it more hard for you to adapt to your new environment? Do you also think that internal Public Relations is extremely important for any organization?

Our hotel for the night

                                  The peformance of the 'new ones' dressed as Santa Claus / Angels 

                                                                   (I am 5th from right)

                                         Entertainment program with traditional Bavarian Music

Week One: Cloud Computing & Virtualization

Name: Christoph
Campus: LUCT

Did you guys ever hear about ‘server virtualization’ or ‘cloud computing’? Well, I didn’t, though actually being a quite tech-savvy person (or at least I thought so), before I started my internship at Maisberger GmbH, a Munich-based PR agency with focus on clients from the IT and technology sector. 

The first client I was assigned to deal with was VMware, one of the global leaders in virtualization and cloud infrastructure. My first task was to handle the media clippings of VMware in the German press. I actually thought this would be a very easy –and quite boring - task, but I was wrong. Since I had to categorize the articles according to which product/services/technology they featured and if the articles were positive/neutral/negative, I had to really understand what VMware is doing and what services and technologies VMware offers. This is an extremely complex topic, and it takes some time to get familiar with all the different terms.

During my first week, it was really hard for me to have a good grasp of the topic, and I had to ask my colleagues quite a lot of times what this or that article actually was about. I dealt mostly with specialized IT press, which doesn’t make it any easier since the articles use almost exclusively technical jargon as they are targeted at IT and computer experts. However, my colleagues were all very helpful and also reassured me that they were at the same situation like me when they joined Maisberger and I don’t need to worry about it. Encouraged by that, I also did my own research to learn more about the topic and bit by bit, I understood more about VMware’s business. 

Since I had to do daily media clippings for VMware, I also got to learn and understand more and more about cloud computing etc. through the articles I had to read through. So the daily routine of going through the media clippings actually helped me quite a lot to understand more about this complex topic. Besides that, I also learned how important media clippings are to document the successful work for the client.

How about you guys, did you also have some situations where you learned that actually simple, “boring” tasks such as media clippings are quite important and helpful for your PR work?

Christoph.

My First Week at ABU Organisation #Blog 2 (Event Preparations)

Hello again mu fellow PR Professional colleagues on the today post i will be updating you on what my first week was all about with the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union Organisation.


Okay I will say I had a really great interview the previous week, and now was the time for me to shine, and show my boss how great I was with the field of work I have interned for. I was so greatful that when I started the organisation had been on some preparations on 3 (three) major workshops for the following week, to be hosted for a period of 2 (two) weeks. What we had to do was to prepare for the events. So these takes me to the part of Event Management under our program. We had to check whether every aspect of the event was on place and ready for the opening, we had to  look at the following during that week: 

• Site 
• Budget finalising (Catering Company)
• Scheduling (Program finalising)
• Site design
• Technical design (Webinar setup)

From my first week at work all was set for the major event on the 18th of July in which we had a total of 40 participants from all the member organisations of ABU.

During all the preparation I did notice one major concern, the organisation did not have local journalists to cover the event rather they mentioned they relay on the publicity of their organisation website to disseminate the important informations and that they had the event on their quarterly magazines and monthly newsletter sent to the members of the organisation. Also the use of Microsoft Outlook was a major source of communication with sending invitations to participants.

From these blog post I would like us to discuss on the importance of the relationship between Media and Public Relations  sector in order for me to recommend the findings to my organisation. And what other new ways can we keep the media up to date with what is happening on our organisations. So that ABU Organisation can use and consider building a great relationship with media on their future events.

Thank you and kind Regards

Keletso Ndiye Kakanje

14464629

LUCT

this is week 9 of my time at Leo Burnett, plenty to do and plenty to say.

I will start of with Monday. A new client was approached, this one an Australian brand; Boost Juice. They came in the morning, both the Managing Director, Dr. Soraya and Director Nick Tiernan of Boost Juice Bars Malaysia, wanted to expand and enhance their public presence in Malaysia and we were here to help them. So there i was in the conference room with our Strategy Planner, Senior Account Executive, Creative Director and Brand Director, and on the other side was Boost Juice. We started of with a powerpoint presentation to highlight what we know of Boost Juice currently and what is it they want to do for their expansion and publicity in Malaysia. The session involved a lot of discussion, where i also contributed, giving out ideas and explaining about Malaysian consumer mindset, social interactions and beverage affinities. It was a sparring session of where we presented the HumanKind philosophy, and how we can incorporate it into their campaign. This workshop lasted from 10am to 2am and it ended with solid vision direction for Boost Juice.

The whole week was similar to this workshop for Boost Juice, except with different clients, like AIA Insurance, CIMA, but the discussions were internally with the creative team. My contribution was verbal, sparring ideas with my superiors and learning the ideation and brand direction aspects.

On Thursday 7th April, i sat in with a press release interview for Yomeishu, the Japanese company. The newspaper agency in Malaysia, The Star came in with their reporter and photographer, to the Leo Burnett office, where we had the CEO of the sole distributor of Yomeishu Banfoong Sydney, Ms Lynne Chiang. At this session, i got to see how the process of getting a story of a press release was done, even as the CEO talked, the PR person on our side can step in. The type of questions as well, and how the formation of what the reporter can ask was done, like a media kit.

Thats the highlight of my week, see you for the next

Faridzul LUCT

PR in the field

Hello everybody,My name is Ditiro Phiri from LUCT.I was doing my intern in private organization Tshimologo Business,a small consultancy in Botswana founded in 2000.

SOME OF SERVICES PROVIDED

1.Corporate (company secretaries and support services) ·

2. Audit ·

3.Tax

4· Accounting

5· Business advisory

6· Training

7· Monitoring & Mentoring

8 · Financing

9· Investments

During my stay there I was responsible for communication process,as in the organisation there is/was no person for the PR department so I was there as to be the only PR person in the organisation,I worked under the supervision of the Operations Manager who got some of commands from the CEO(the founder of the Tshimologo Business).

TBS have all their services under one roof which makes it a one stop for immaculate business solutions.

First day at work I was assigned to take on the Liaison plan which was not an easy task at all,it was my task to compile all clients and their contact details,had to provide contacts every time when any client had to be contacted,some of activities carried out included preparing memos and letters for clients in which later they were taken to the Registry of companies and Botswana Unified Revenue Services(BURS).

Well the PR job is fairly busy these days,particularly since the businesses are competing with each other more than ever,People/public are integral part of how business operates or thrives therefore if business Public image is ruined it can have a large impact nationwide on it's people or client.

The field of PR involves wide range of clients from celebrities and attorneys to entire companies,it is the job of a Public relations Manager to ensure that the image and attitude of their client is in sync with the public,their customs and the media therefore PR professionals must manage publicity for their clients and arrange interviews the goal being to ensure that the client maintains a positive image and a good relationship with the public in order to maintain business (N.A,2010).

PR in the field is totally different from the PR we learn in the varsity,especially when it comes to the side of Proposals,guys stay tuned to my next post as will talk about the difference between the PR in the field and varsity PR.

Lebo Moitoi..............................MY GOODBYES!

For two and a half months I woke up at 5.30am every day and took the 6.30am bus without fail to the centre of Malaysia for my placement. For two and a half months I was an intern at Mongoose Publishing under both Public relations and editorial, but that was just for formality sake, truth is I kind of did everything that the company had to offer, sales, marketing, distribution and branding.

I learnt more than I could ever have from any text book available, I got to learn from professionals. Some would say that this is the end but I’m saying this is only the beginning of a long journey and a successful career due to the knowledge I got form the most amazing placement ever.

My placement has taught me the value of time management and actually put more meaning to the phrase “time is money “,it has taught me to multi task and use communicate to the best of my abilities in order to be heard and how to even get information even though language is a barrier at most times.

When I first started two and a half months seemed to be forever and it was only towards the end that I realised it wasn’t about the time, it was more about what I have acquired from the company, it was about the relations that I have built with the people working there and about the mere fact that strangers accepted and welcomed me and taught me more than I could have ever got to know. So this is it, the end of my placement and my blogging but the beginning of yet another chapter in my life.

All the best to the graduating class, God be with us. Thank you Mongoose and I am sure going to miss my second family at Level 36,Menara Ambank, 8 Jalan Yap Kwan Seng, Kuala Lumpur, 50450.

Lebo Moitoi.............TIME WELL SPENT

During the time of my placement I was assigned different tasks .Some were everyday tasks whilst some where done once in a while. One thing that really caught my attention was the use of spreadsheets. I remember when I first started and my manager asked me to compile a list of Food bloggers because of the Food awards event that had just happened. I went online and surfed the net and managed to find a few of them, I then copied all their links into a word file and sent to my manager thinking I had completed ma task. She sent it back and said “nothing is PR unless it’s on a spreadsheet” so from then on ma life and my internship revolved around spreadsheets. The list of spreadsheets that I had to do included media list, media monitoring, client’s contacts and even events details. When I first started my placement I only knew basics when it came to spreadsheets but towards the end I was a pro.I mastered it like the back of my hand.

One of my daily tasks was to RSVP events which our editorial team were invited to. The editorial team had to send through all invitations that they got to PR desk and we had to call them up to RSVP whether we attending or not.

I also had the chance to work a little bit with the sales team in making sure that everyone who had subscribed to our monthly publication of Expatriates lifestyle http://www.expatriatelifestyle.com got their issue in time and making sure everyone appeared on the list and that when sending their monthly issue of January there was also a voucher for bird park which came as a freebie to our loyal subscribers.

Most importantly I leant that there is no room for mistakes in Public Relations and it’s the little things that we have to keep in mind when dealing with clients, like for instance when making a call, ask for the name of the person you want to talk to, so you hear their voice and therefore can know which gender they fall in, or even ask for their salutations and designations. There is nothing embarrassing and unprofessional like calling a client and addressing her as a he just because you assumed it’s a he looking at the name. Professionalism comes before everything else.

Meet The Acquaintance Of...

Hi everyone,

It has been a hustle and bustle over the past weeks in the office as we were preparing for the Green Packet      FY 10 Results and Business Updates Media Briefing which was hosted by Group Managing Director & CEO of Green Packet Berhad Mr Puan Chan along side Michael Lai , CEO of Packet one Networks. The event was located at the Packet Hub in Petaling Jaya.

Before the event, My task was to send out media invites and make follow ups to confirm if the journalists will be attending the event. During the event, i registered journalist and analysts who attended the briefing,gave out media kits and ushered them around the premises.

i enjoyed the exercise because i worked off the office and got the opportunity to meet Mr Puan Chan and interact with different journalist from  Chinese, English and Malay newspaper. In general this whole exercise taught me how to handle the media and  to be more informed and understand the companies clients as they are vital.

my baby steps into the co-operate world

Afternoon friends,

Great news every one, am having a blast in my internship, i feel part of the company despite my minor role , eye opening experience to the cooperate world if i may say...

I have been placed at PDQ  for the past 3 weeks under the accounting services. During the course of my training i have been exposed to areas such as;

- Media Monitoring

-Drafting Press Release

-Media Invitations and RSVP's

-Reporting

-Creative Development Procedures

-Research 

-Job Briefs

Since my placement here, every morning i read through newspapers searching for articles about PDQ clients or information related to their competitors of which i cut the clippings,scan and  file for future references then send soft copies of the clippings to the clients to confirm their sales messages or evaluate the effectiveness of the events. I recently learned how to calculate media value, a bit tricky nearly gave up easily, thank you to my supervisor, am excelling!

The task of reading newspapers everyday can be exhausting and boring at times but it has broadened my knowledge of current affair in Malaysia and am more updated on events that are happening around me and world wide, which i was not aware of...

Stay tuned as i will be updating you more on what doing i've been doing for the past weeks

LEBO MOITOI.......ROLES REVERSED

In order for me to fully understand how the world of Public relations and journalism truly works, my manager placed me under the editorial team for 3 weeks so I could have first hand approach to the world of the media because like I have said before, my company of placement is a publishing company which therefore makes it the media to other companies out there. Different companies invite the editorial team to their events with hope that they would cover their stories and events in our different magazines.

During my time with the editorial team I learnt that public relations people will do whatever they can in order to get the media to attend their events. They would send invitations, send emails, and then call to make sure that the media indeed received the invitation, then they will cal again to confirm the RSVP, they will send information about the particular event, call again and again and again. They do what they have to do in order to make sure that their event receives the highest coverage ever.

The most amazing thing is the relationship that is established just by attending events. Public relations do more than just nagging in order to get the media to attend their events. They also do follow ups after wards. They always make sure that they have the latest contacts for all the media and as a token of appreciation they usually send goody bags to the media for no reason but just so to thank them for always responding to their calls and being present at their events.

I had too much fun at editorial and I’m quite sure that by the end of my 3 weeks i had gained a few kilos due to the many cup cakes that we always got....so if ever the roles are to be reversed, then the media will not only see the hard work and how demanding our line of work is and PR people will for once also get to enjoy the goody goodies and to be pampered....if only the roles could be reversed!

LEBO MOITOI...................happy employee, productive employee!

Last week there was an office meeting where everyone was given the chance to air their grievances and also to get answers to whatever question that they might have. All the respective management from all departments where there and interns were also part of the meeting. When I first started my placement here there was a meeting where the management introduced a fine of RM10 to everyone who came after 9.05am because office hours starts at 9am.It was in the meeting that we learned that the company made a sum of RM200 from collection of RM10 from those who came late up until today. The RM200 is to be given to an orphanage this month end when the team goes out to perform their Community Social Responsibilities to one orphanage which they usually visit every 3 months to take forth donations.

It was in the meeting that the management reveled the 32 inch plasma together with Astro Beyond which have been bought for the employees to use during their lunch breaks and for those who come early to work and for for employees who come early to work.

One thing that I have since realized about my company of placement is that they are good communicators and they do things in order to lure their employees into loving the company and for them to enjoy where they are and the job that they do as well as the atmosphere that they are in. Their internal relations is of high level and easily show that if they are able to communicate with all the expatriates in Malaysia and have good relations with their readers from more than 5 publications that they own then why not extend it to their employees. There are more than 30 people in the office but the atmosphere is so relaxed and jolly that if the editorial team gets cookies as a token of appreciation from a client, then the editorial shares with the marketing team as well as PR, Sales and Design because they appreciate the joint venture that they are in and understand that without one division then its impossible to get even one publication to print. Therefore a job well done to the PR department for making sure that good relations are vital is all divisions and mutual respect is practiced all thorough the different levels and departments in the company. The Team spirit that they have is the one that is going to make them one of the best publishing houses ever.

It’s not just about the TV or the Astro...it’s knowing that the management does think about the employees and that they want to make them as comfortable as possible because a happy and comfortable employee does the job ten times better than someone who drags themselves in every morning because there is nothing that motivates them. Mongoose is at the top of its game and truly understands that a ‘happy employee is indeed a productive employee.’

This is it

Seeing as tomorrow, 15th February, is a public holiday here in Malaysia (for the Muslims, it will be the birthday of Prophet Muhammad), today would be my final day as an intern here at Faradale Media.

I never thought that this day would come. No longer would I have to wake up at 6am to avoid the jam to reach to my office in which the day starts at 8am, no longer would I have to endure traffic to and fro from home and my office and no longer would I have to pay toll everyday on the highway.

Yes, I am happy that my time here has finally come to an end but at the same time, I can't help but to feel a little sad that I'll be leaving this place by 5.15pm. Throughout my 2 months here, I have learned a lot. Although I didn't learn anything different, but the experience here is worth keeping.

I am fortunate enough that my colleagues are not like ones on TV! My colleagues are nice and friendly people who make me feel welcomed and comfortable. At the same time, they know how to respect my privacy and all of us minded our own business, which is good.

I enjoyed writing articles and contributing to Rakan Sarawak and covering events. The experience enabled me to see an event from the media's point-of-view seeing as I have to arrive on time, collect the media kit, take pictures, write down notes and record speeches. While being here, I learned to be professional and punctual. Seriously, my time management has improved quite a lot!

I have also learned that although you don't like what you're covering, it doesn't mean that you can do a half-hearted job on it. I cannot begin to tell you how I have yawned in boredom while covering events. But I still am professional about it and gave it all my all while writing the article for it. In the end, I ended up having fun writing it. Surprise, surprise!

I am still surprised at how fast time flew by. I started in December 15th 2010 and now, 2 months have already passed and when the clock strikes 5.15pm, I will hand in my card pass, clock in my card for the final time and step out of the office for good.

Yes, yes, I am being melodramatic. But what I would like to say is thank you to Faradale Media for giving me the chance to catch a glimpse of working life and to take me in as an intern. What I have learned, I will put it to good use and one day I hope that I have done the organisation proud.

For those who are finishing their internship in a short while, I just want to say congratulations for making it this far! Give yourselves a pat on the back! For those who still have quite a long way to go, I am sure that you are doing a good job! Don't worry, time will pass by quickly and before you know it you'll be like me; waiting to end the day.

To all LUCT students in my batch, see you in 2 more weeks! I hope to exchange stories with you on your internship experiences!

Happy Chinese New Year!

First of all, a very Happy Chinese New Year to all those celebrating! I hope that you have had fun during your break because I know I have! Today is my first day back on the job after my Chinese New Year leave and it has been such a refreshing change.

At the moment, I don't have much to do because there is probably not much events going on seeing as everyone is just fresh out of the long weekend break. But instead of going online to Facebook or Twitter, I have decided to spend my time reading up on online news sites; especially CNN and The Star. Truth be told, I seldom read the newspapers because of the following:

• I don't want to get my hands dirty from the ink.
• Newspapers are not stapled, so it's really tiring to maintain your arm's position when reading it so that papers won't come falling down.

Which is why I have decided to settle for reading news online. Not only does it make my online time more productive, but I can learn so many things. Now, I log on everyday to keep track of some heavily-focused on issues such as the protests in Egypt, the voting decisions of the people of Sudan and so much more.

Not only am I informed on what is currently happening around the world, but I can see how the media handled these news. Also by reading the readers' comments, I somewhat know what to expect when writing an article and it is safe to say that not everyone has the same views! Which is why this is very important to ensure that you don't offend anyone when writing an article.

That is all from me right now. Seeing as next week I officially end my internship (bring on the party hats!), I will post one last post about my experience here so far.

Take care and HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR to those celebrating!

2nd blog post for this blog

It's been a while since I've posted in this blog. For those who don't know, I'm currently sick so I took a day off from work but at least this gives me time to post here as well as to comment on other people's entries.

So, my internship here at Faradale Media is coming to an end soon. So far, I have done a lot of journalism work and a fair bit of PR but all in all, it's been fun. Last week, I wrote an article on the development of women in Sarawakian politics and it was quite a personal piece for me because I strongly agree that there should be more women leaders in the politics world.

Last week was the launch of the Yayasan Perpaduan Sarawak (YPS) program which you can read about here. The company I work for is one of the organizers for it and one of the events which is organised for the YPS is the logo design competition which I helped to write the rules and regulations for.

Also, Faradale Media publishes Rakan Sarawak; a monthly publication for the Sarawakian Chief Minister's office and my editor asked me to help contribute to the "Fun and Games" section last week. It was fun and a nice break from writing articles. One of the themes for the puzzle was Public Relations" and as you can imagine, I had to keep myself from using all those fancy PR terms.

This is what I can update for now, keep on the lookout for my next post!

LEBO MOITOI................PR GLITZ & WORK!

This has been the busiest 3 weeks of my internship. We had to prepare for the World Press Photo (WPP) event.WPP is non-profit organization based in, the Netherlands. It is the public showcase of photojournalism that displays the visual creativity of the profession.

This was a very challenging task because this was a high class event that was brought to KL by the Dutch Embassy therefore this meant that the guest list consisted of Ambassadors, chief justices and all the important people in Malaysia. Firstly there were more than a thousand invitations and because they were going to be courier we had to fill in the details and more than a thousand couriers slips up manually. But that turned out to be the easiest task ever because what came after that was a handful. Doing the RSVP,s was the worst ever because initially people were supposed to RSVP only until the 5 Jan but they didn’t so we had to call them up to make sure that they indeed did receive the invitation, and it was only when there was a day left to the event that they started to RSVP and they did it using every means of communication available: via fax, telephone ,Emails and some even courier their responses and we had to key in those who had confirmed their attending to the spreadsheet and compiling information from 4 different sources was not an easy task and my manager kept on stressing and emphasizing that"there is no room for mistakes in PR,at all."

We wrote 2 press releases and did 3 speeches for the Minister of Tourism, Malaysia and Managing Director, TNT Express Malaysia & Brunei and a media briefing document that contained all the necessary information about the event and the people behind it for the media. We also did the program and any other document which was for the event or about the event.

On the day of the event, just out of nowhere ,my manager asked me to prepare a media kit for the media in a goody bag and I didn’t panic because I had leant in school what a media kit is and what it contains and I was happy to do my task to the best of my ability. We all had mixed feelings on the day of the event. As tiring as it was we had to make sure that all went well and smooth. Everything was set and in order and I personally was in charge of media registration.

I’m happy to report that the event went smooth, the exhibition is on until the 27 of Jan and the media really did a wide spread on the event.

THE MOST IMPORTANT thing that I have since realized is that in PR we need the media for our survival that is why PR personnel’s do not mind to spend on the media in whatsoever way. The media is the answer to all our problem and without the media non of our events and campaign will never reach our intended audiences.The media is a weapon of survival in PR the Pr world that is why PR people go to all lengths in order to establish those meaningful relationship.So i have realized that although what we have learned turns to differ from how things are done in the corporate world,it a solid foundation for it gives us light of what to really expect in future and in the corporate world.So sitting through PR 250 classes turns to be worth it,now more than ever!!!!!!!!!and this has shown that PR is Both glitz and work as we were dressed up in our best formal outfits and 5 inch stilettos throughout the event.got to love our profession :)

First post for this blog.

My name is Doreen Ling and I am a student from Limkokwing University of Creative Technology. This internship is for my PR393 module and this is my first entry for the blog.

I am interning at Faradale Media, a publishing and media management company here in Kuching, Sarawak. The company has two headquarters; Wisma Bapa and the MAA Tower. I am currently stationed at Wisma Bapa, which is a government building and a lot of government agencies are located here as well.

This is my second/third week interning here since I started on the 15th of December 2010. So far, this is what I have done:

1. Covered a few government-related events.
2. Wrote some feature articles.
3. Contributed jokes to Rakan Sarawak, the monthly publication of the State Secretary Office which Faradale Media helps to publish.
4. Came up with ways on how to create awareness for a youth program.
5. Helped come up with the rules and regulations for a logo designing competition.

That's it for now, I will update again if something comes up. There's nothing much going on in the office right now, so there's nothing much I can do.

Cheers!

Doreen Sharon Ling Yee Mei (14463671)

Everything In One

Internship in SPCA Selangor has allowed me to do and learn so many things not just in aspects of Public Relations. The Marketing and Communications Department in SPCA basically does all the pr and communicating work and there were tasks that I was assigned to do, some related to PR but some not. I was responsible to update pictures of the animals that were up for adoption as well as update the notice board on the website.

During the pre-production of the SPCA Gala Dinner, the cool part was that Jacinta put me in charge of liaising with a few of the participants for the event. It was kind of an important task because I had to inform them about the schedule and also answer to any questions that they have regarding the event. So basically if they did not show up or if there is any confusion, I would have been in big trouble. :-0 But thankfully everything well and everything went according to plan for the event.

Certain days when there is not much work in the office, I would go down to the shelter and try to help out here by showing people around and help them pick a suitable pet. This basically helped me a lot in terms of my PR socializing skills. Working in the shelter really helped in that because most of the times, there are people who would bring in animals for surrendering. Some will be from the streets and some will be from owners. So even though SPCA is an animal shelter, we do still try to persuade and convince the people to look for other alternatives instead of giving the animals away. A lot of talking and persuading as well as convincing has to be done and most of the times it's not easy to change the peoples minds.

I also got the chance to follow the inspectorates to go for home inspections for animal cruelty cases. during the few trips that I went with the inspectorates, there were up days and there were also down days. The up days was when you get to see the animals that were adopted living in good homes and having a happy life. The down days were when you actually see the animals that have been treated badly by their owners or stray dogs that are abandoned on the streets.

So these are basically some of the related and non-related PR work that SPCA Selangor gave me the chance to do. PR aside, the experiences actually gave me more awareness about the issues about animals.

Heng Fong :-)